


nibelungenlied (9413)

by feelingfrenzy



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Pirates, Fictional Geography, Kinda Dark, M/M, Mild Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, pseudo-medieval setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22348564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelingfrenzy/pseuds/feelingfrenzy
Summary: the one where a simple low class citizen joins a pirate in the journey for the treasure
Relationships: Choi San/Song Mingi, Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 15
Kudos: 32





	1. aventüre 1

**Author's Note:**

> like i said ...... obligatory pirates au for ateezers that was actually kinda planned years ago.. yeah The Notorious Yara's Original World..... enjoy and good luck to everyone. the warning is more of a disclaimer like u would expect genre typical violence but i myself am not great with that stuff so i don't think there would be anything descriptive  
> another note is idek if i should tag but possibly would be ooc because while i tried to keep in irl character i think some of ateezers characters have different personalities in treasureverse me thinks so. 😁  
> i was debating how do i write this and i've decided to write a different text on mina's journey but i've kept the first chapter for The Introduction of The Main (?) Antagonist  
> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/woosangenjoyer)

“That was rude.”

Momo just shrugs and shakes her head.

“Seriously, it’s just a heart,” Chaeyoung rolls her eyes and goes back to braiding her hair. “It’s not the same as trying to stab someone, calling a maleficarum and running away without even getting the quest. What happened to manners?”

“Actually, it might have been painful, as far as I know,” Momo shrugs again and hugs her knees closer. “I heard that the claws going through your chest and tearing out a still beating heart kinda hurt you.”

“Nonsense. I do it all the time to humans and no one says a word.”

“You’re mavka, you have charms.”

Chaeyoung rolls her eyes again.

“Whatever. Dumb bitch’s gonna run around with no heart until the world ends.” She scoffs and ties the end of her braid. “Speaking of this, what are you going to do?”

“Don’t know about the other witches, to be honest. Haseul is trying to influence the dreamers so they will realize the Glacier is coming faster,” Momo says, not looking away from the birds at the horizon. “I don’t think we can do anything with this when even the Ice Witch is scared of the cold.”

Chaeyoung turns to the horizon too. “Shall I tell Mina your quest while I’m trying to find my people?”

Momo nods and gets up from the sand. “Even if I’m not sure we would be able to complete the spell.”

“You can still try.”

Momo doesn’t reply, she just walks back to her hut, kicking the sand of her way. The sound of the waves is making her sad—she can hear the ocean is scared too. Fish and birds can’t hear it but they sense something is off. Not like fish would care—they can hide underwater. Momo wishes she could hide underwater too.

“Hey, Chae,” she stops and looks back at her. “Try at least find your folk then and survive it.”

Chaeyoung looks back at her with a sorrowful expression but nods hesitantly.

  


***

  


One day Mina woke up, and her whole crew was gone.

Usually, she would go out of her chambers, and hear Sana and Youngjae singing loudly while washing the deck, Jinyoung would shake his head passing by to the wheel, then Mina would check up on the rest of the team—Sunmi would probably be at the medic’s chambers, making poisons and potions with Changkyun, Nayeon and Jackson would be in the kitchen, bothering Kihyun, one of the roosters at the lower deck is trying to be louder than Minhyuk, and Shownu is laughing at this. After looking for them all she would climb the eagle’s nest and enjoy the salty wind. It was like that every day, but it was still enjoyable—because some things should stay the same and because it was the only certain thing in her life. Nobody knew where the wind would take them today; and it was fine.

Then it all was gone—Mina woke up on the wall, buried under what remained of her bed or a shelf, all wood black and her body covered in bruises, cuts and burns, and some of the bones obviously broken. She can only lie down under a broken board and stare through the hole in the opposite wall—cloudy sky with the birds sometimes passing by, seashore obviously somewhere near her as she can hear the waves—and think that she’d rather die while still being passed out. Now she has to just think if her crew survived—besides Sunmi, she’s a mavka, hopefully she helped those who jumped in the water, the explosion happened at the kitchen deck so—

She has to stop thinking. It hurts too much to even theorize that someone of her team might have died.

The next thing Mina remembers is a woman with a strange haircut and gentle smile carrying her on her hands like she weighs nothing—she notices her being awake and whispers something in a comforting voice, but Mina can’t figure out either because she doesn’t know the language or she is too close to the verge of death.

She wakes up, all her wounds bandaged, broken ribs, leg and fingers in barely distinct dull pain, a smell of seafood being cooked, and the same woman looking at her with the same gentle smile.

Her name is Momo, and she says she just lives alone on this small island in the far south—oh God, Mina should’ve suspected something here already—and that Mina can stay as long as she pleases.

And Mina stays—this place seemed so nice that she forgot about anything she wanted to do. Some weird hypnotizing atmosphere put her senses to sleep, and she was just enjoying the peaceful life so far away from the people. Only a huge forest full of colorful frogs and birds, a broad shore of white sand and the blue ocean as far as the eyes can see. Mina would take slow walks on the shore as her leg heals, comes home to Momo cooking fish or a pheasant, and the days keep passing by—one day she actually forgets she was a Pirate Queen. Everything is a blur of different days going by and she loses the count of how much time has already passed.

Momo is so sweet and caring, gives her the best hugs and laughs with her for no reason and tries to kiss her someday, but Mina doesn’t feel anything for her. But when she realizes that she has to leave, it’s too late—Momo’s eyes are shining with red lights, and her fingers warp into black claws, and the next thing Mina knows is burning blinding pain in her ribcage as the witch tears out her heart, hot blood streaming down her stomach.

She remembers vaguely grabbing a kitchen knife and stabbing her a few times, then on God knows what strength she runs away from the house and leaves on a boat Momo used for fishing. After that Mina passes out and hopes the waves take her somewhere to the north. The pain of the injury erases half of the events, so she forgets most of the things that happened.

She makes it to Spring archipelago, steals clean clothes hung to dry in one small village, then somehow makes it to one of the ports and manages to find a pirate ship that takes her to Beira.

Living without a heart so far doesn’t seem as bad as someone would've expected—it’s a bit empty in her chest right now and she gets some comments on her deadly pale skin tone, but also she slowly gets used to it. She would like to get it back, though, for sure. Eden probably still has that amulet he was boasting about—maybe it will heal the wound for real and get her a new heart.

She feels as if so many things at Beira had changed—she definitely doesn’t remember that many people here, especially northerners, and it turned into a pretty big city, full of narrow streets and cute buildings—but the biggest change has to be that she can't recognize a single person on the streets.

Just for how long she was at the sea this time?!

She walks into the tavern that is, according to the sign, named ‘Drunk Selkie’, and immediately gets a very loud ‘ _welcome, make yourself home!_ ' from a cheerful teenage boy polishing one of the tables, and only two out of very few customers give her disinterested looks. It’s not like she ever was prideful or something, but it offends her—isn’t she one of the Pirate Kings, and they all are acting as if she was a farmer girl?!

She forces herself to calm down—people might be scared of her and this boy is new here. So she walks up to the bar counter and struggles if she wants anything. Another teenager, a girl with short blonde hair, walks up and stands in front of her with an expecting smile.

When that boy finishes with the table and comes up to them too, Mina finally decides she doesn’t want to drink despite how crazy the past few days—weeks? months? _years?_ —have been, she just looks at them both and asks the first thing that comes to her mind. “What’s new recently?”

The girl immediately looks at her co-worker—he must be the one responsible for the most rumors. He rubs his nose and thinks a bit before replying. “That captain… Chris, from ‘Stay’, right?”

“The one who was betrayed by his crewmate?” The girl asks.

He nods. “It was his execution day yesterday, but none of our people were here. So he might’ve been hanged or might have not been hanged.”

The girl raises her eyebrows and shakes her head. “Well. Anyways, nobody wants to do anything during the winter.”

“Yeah,” the boy nods, “I can’t think of anything new, I guess. There should be some new calls for the crews at the wall, but I haven’t checked it yet. Hongjoong’s has been hanging here for a whole moon.”

So, if it’s winter, she was gone for at least four to six months, she left on the seventh moon. “What day is it today?” Mina asks. “And year,” she adds, considering the possibility of her being gone for a year and a half—considering that she feels like it’s been years since she woke up at Momo’s island.

The boy replies confidently, “day fifth. Of second moon, yes—”

Mina waits in anticipation, but the next thing she hears actually knocks her out of her mind for a solid minute.

“—year 1255.”

This just doesn’t make any fucking sense. The calendar has changed. They are lying to her. She had died and now the valkyries are fucking with her in purgatory. Momo is using her dark magic to affect her brain. The stress forced her ability to see dreams awakened. It can’t be the reality. No way.

Mina grips the table, sinking nails into the wood. Probably will leave splinters, but she’s too distressed.

The girl’s expression softens and shows genuine concern now. “Are you okay, good lady? Shall we send San for a healer?”

The boy lets out a snort—he probably has to be San she has been referring to.

Mina ignores the question and sinks down on the table, running her hand through her hair. “Do you know who I am?”

The boy leans on his elbow closer. “Afraid not. Name’s San, this is Yeri. How shall we refer to our guest?”

“Mina,” she raises her head and looks straight at them. “The Black Swan Mina. Captain of ‘Once’. Do you know who I am?”

Yeri scratches her head and looks down. “How do I say this… I mean, of course, but Black Swan Mina died 246 years ago, failing her expedition to Noth.”


	2. aventüre 2

Seonghwa starts to think these sixteen years in the Ran Bay had affected him—he’s freezing right now, when the weather isn’t that cold, maybe Ymir’s regular autumn day at least. Well, regular autumn day before The Ice took it all, now you won’t last long here even if you have fire. Earlier the snow would just stay for the whole winter, here it snows sometimes but it melts almost immediately; the white layer sticks to the shoes when you step on it, revealing the grey dirty road. When you think of it, he had lived in Ullr for a longer time than he lived in Polaris, yet he hadn’t got used to the different climate at all. Probably it’s the circumstances of leaving—nobody wanted, but they had to—he will never get used to it.

Through the drowsiness Seonghwa notices how his clothes, wet of the humid sea air, get covered by the hoarfrost; and the boat gets stuck in the ice that locks the whole river channel in a moment. A seagull flies off the pier but falls down immediately, frozen to death, breaks the still fragile ice and goes down to the bottom of the river. The wind gets stronger, and the snowflakes scratch his cheeks, Seonghwa tries to wrap himself up better but then realizes—there’s no point in it. It’s The Ice came to take back what was promised to it since the beginning of the times.

“Arrived, I said,” Seonghwa almost jumps up because of the sudden yell and looks around. No one is left in the boat, only him and the old boatman, so he apologizes and jumps up to the pier. He startles a seagull with his steps, and it flies away, but not falls dead like he had seen before, it peacefully takes the course to the south, where you can see the towers of Moirai behind the mist. Seonghwa wishes he could fly away like that, to the warm seas, where his life wouldn’t be a constant cycle of work and sleep, but he doesn’t have wings like this seagull.

Another fucking work day at the fucking port. Seonghwa takes slow heavy steps to the port’s direction. The merchants’ ships won’t discharge themselves, unfortunately.

Actually, that day he had a feeling that everything was about to go wrong. He was just on the verge, because every minute he had gotten a thought of ‘ _it can’t get worse from here_ ’, and yet every time it did. Even though it was nothing special; he gets yelled at by the boss all the time for dumb reasons, all the workers are in a hurry and curse at each other, every day there’s a wimpy merchant trying to tell them how they should do their job, and all the stuff like that. But that day it for some reason annoyed him so much he decided to hide for the last 30 minutes of his shift at the stocks and take a small break. He brought a box of frozen crabs with himself for the cover—if someone sees him, he was carrying the crabs and totally not slacking off.

Maya is probably trying to leave half of her fur on his pants with how hard she’s huddling him. This is funny, actually, considering how aggressive she used to be with him before. Seonghwa smiles at the memory and pets her head. And thinks again if he should take her home—he’s worried for her, she’s living under the roof and eats leftovers, and now she’s going to have kittens… It’s going to be hard for her. Well, and who has it easy nowadays? Maybe that seagull who left to the southern seas has.

And then it happens—Seonghwa hears someone stumble over a big wooden box and curse, but the voice isn’t familiar so he hesitates to move. Maya though runs away, waddling funnily because of her big belly, and jumps up the stairs to the roof. Seonghwa peers out behind the shelf where he hid, and thinks about his situation. Unfamiliar figure, unfamiliar voice, he has nothing to be scared about, he can still rest. His conscience tries to remind him that he should actually report on the intruder, but he shuts it up immediately—he’s not getting paid enough for this, who the hell tries to rob a fish stock and he puts himself in the danger of snitching on himself slacking off.

So he’s staying in his place.

He can’t ignore the fish thief for a long time; after approximately two minutes of step sounds and rustling noises a shadow is cast over Seonghwa, hiding a ray of weak light falling from the small window on top of the wall. So he lifts his head up, accepting that this person is here for him.

He was right about not knowing this person—he would totally remember such an extraordinary flamboyant appearance, people don’t dress like that here. First he notices a fox fur coat and a terrifying amount of tacky necklaces and chains, Seonghwa’s neck hurts at just the sight of that. The stranger has long back hair of light blond color, going somewhere far behind his shoulders, adorned with small beads and a peacock feather. He has so many gold earrings, his head is probably being dragged to the side every time he turns it, Seonghwa counts five of them and then that guy moves his head and he sees some more. And all of this with a mischievous grin of a person who just succeeded in their task.

So, a fashion disaster for a cold grey winter day in Ran Bay.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Seonghwa says.

“You neither,” the guy replies immediately.

They just look at each other for a bit and then start laughing simultaneously—Seonghwa just smiles but the man goes into a full-body loud laugh.

“I’m Hongjoong,” he says with a bright wide smile.

“Seonghwa.” He gets up and leans on the metal box, crossing his arms on his chest.

“I know.”

Seonghwa blinks in confusion, but suppresses the emotion from showing up on his face.

He had lived a peaceful lawful life of a refugee, never crossed paths with any underground gangs—he stumbled upon them, but tried his best to be neutral, he didn’t need enemies among the people who could’ve been his friends in different circumstances—he figures out this Hongjoong guy has to be either a criminal or a crazy rich foreigner. The latter is unlikely—he speaks a very well standard dialect—so he is probably a marauder. Or a pirate, but the guard here is so crazy it’s unlikely a pirate ship would be in the port. This still doesn’t make sense, how would he know his name—again, Seonghwa never crossed paths with someone who would send such a parrot for his head.

“How can I help you?” He is trying to talk indifferently to show him he is neither scared nor actually wants to ‘help him’.

Hongjoong shrugs and smiles. “Help… Would you like to help a bastard of the ocean to find a treasure? For a part of the riches, for sure.”

This has to be a trap even though it doesn’t sound like one. This really makes Seonghwa think—it’s not something to offer to an unfamiliar person, it sounds weird within a few months of being acquaintances, and you for sure do not offer it in such a place. Yet something in this offer sounds so wonderful, he is considering agreeing even while having absolutely no information.

“Don’t think I’m offering this out of the blue,” Hongjoong continues with the same smile, “I was watching over you. Not in a creepy stalking way, I asked people around and I think you would be a great addition to the team.”

“How?” Seonghwa huffs. He doesn’t think low of his skills, he’s not totally useless, yes, but for a pirate ship crew? Unlikely. This pirate thinks a refugee working in the port would be a valuable crew member.

Hongjoong snorts and starts bending his fingers while listing. “First—people say you worked many different jobs around the city. Be the quartermaster and we’ll sail far. I will tell the one who we’ll pick the captain, so this position is almost officially yours. Second, people also say you know your ways with a spear.”

“Barely,” Seonghwa interrupts him. It’s a dark time and his district is notorious for robbers, so it’s always nice to at least know which end of the spear can leave a hole in the bulgar.

“If I’m planning this right, we won’t be fighting at all.”

Seonghwa sarcastically huffs again, but then he sees Hongjoong—suddenly he looks serious, giving him an intense stare sending actual chills down his back. He finally processes the fact that there’s an actual criminal in front of him, who most likely has been in many battles, maybe even killed someone, and is respectable enough to be sent to hire crew members or start a journey himself.

Hongjoong continues in a voice less cheerful. “Seonghwa, be honest with me. Do you enjoy living like that? Are you happy? I doubt you are, switching jobs every half a year and just trying to survive. Don’t you want to run away and live free?”

And he reaches out a hand for him to shake if he agrees.

Back when he was a kid, Seognhwa dreamed of being a brave warrior. Many boys his age did—serve in the army, get knighted by the queen and slay the wild monsters and witches. Or maybe to be a wanderer with a loyal group of friends, explore the world, fight the wild monsters and witches. Then he learned some monsters are too strong even for a group of knights, and witches don’t exist, and that there are worse problems than the wildlife—they had to run away to the south. He stopped dreaming and was just wishing they would be able to survive. Then he was left alone and stopped dreaming and wishing about anything, he was just existing. He changed his job so many times in the past four years, and nothing got better, maybe even got worse, and the future doesn’t seem to be promising.

And now, he’s not getting a knight’s title or being turned into a seagull who can fly away from the cold, but he is being offered something similar—they would sail the warm seas, because why the hell would they sail northern seas, it’s nearly freezing. They would find the treasure and he would spend his part on a land in Hvergelmir. Who knows if the end of the world is actually happening, he can wait for it in a warm place.

Maybe it’s impulsive, but he has nothing to lose. If he becomes the quartermaster, at the very least nobody will be able to tell him off.

“Fuck it,” Seonghwa mutters, kicks the box with the crabs he still had next to him, and grabs the hand in front of him, clasping it strongly.

(He would have to tell himself off, but this is not that significant now.)

Hongjoong squeezes his hand back and gives him another cat-like smile.


	3. aventüre 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh did i say aventüre is how original nibelungenlied's chapters are called? okay good.

Seonghwa was in Moirai only twice or thrice, despite it being visible from the shore during the good weather—never had a reason or some time, and, to be honest, wasn’t in the right mood either. Now he is on a ship leaving the port, watches the market street, bell tower and houses absolutely analogical to Ran Bay, and feels sad, but he isn’t sure exactly why—either because he never actually found time to visit this place, or because it turned out to be the same as the Bay.

He gave Maya to his neighbor—the old lady was very understanding when she heard he leaves, but was beyond euphoric when she heard about the kittens, which seemed weird to Seonghwa, but he didn’t say anything. Hopefully, the winds would bring him here, and he would see Maya, even if he swore to himself as he was getting on the ship that he would never step back on these boards of the port ever again—after all, this cat sometimes was the only thing that made him think it’s worth to continue his pointless existence.

He watches the misty shore disappear in the twilight until the lighthouse couldn’t be seen, and only then decides to come down from the quarterdeck to the lower deck, where the rest of the crew is. It’s not his crew, Hongjoong just jumped on a ship that would take them to the pirate island Beira, where they would meet up with the rest.

But as he turns around, he nearly bumps into Hongjoong—the latter awkwardly smiles and takes a step back.

“Great, I actually wanted to ask you for details,” Seonghwa immediately starts talking. “I saw your map, we’re going to the pirate kingdom. What else?”

Hongjoong blinks. “What ‘what else’?”

“I mean, like,” he waves his hand at a loss of words. “Like, every detail. Why are we going here, how many people you already have, what does that treasure look like? This stuff. I mean, I guess it’s not that important but I’d like to know so I’ll know what we should be ready for and we would have less unpredictable situations.”

Hongjoong nods to all of his questions, indicating he was listening. “We are going to Beira to recruit more people. You know, like, there are permanent crews but also you can make a call and someone will reach out. Right now our team is two people.”

“Oh, me and…” Seonghwa points at himself and raises an eyebrow.

“…and me.”

Seonghwa inhales but just sighs. Hongjoong looks very hopeless saying this and he actually feels bad—was he searching for a long time already? Why did no one reach out?

“I have all the journal pages at friend's home so you can read yourself,” Hongjoong continues. “Honestly, I don’t know if it’s something groundbreaking, but I got it and it would take us to more treasures. The author of the journal said he had an amulet that can heal even deadly wounds so I would like to get it.”

“Do you…” Seonghwa stops, wondering if he is allowed already to get to the tragic backstory. Maybe he is being too nosy for now.

Hongjoong though guesses his question and smiles gently. “No, don’t worry, I don’t need it for anyone specific. I think if it really works, I’ll give it to Wheein from the clinic. That will help many people.”

Wow, Seonghwa thinks. It’s somehow weird to think that this man with most likely some kills to his name and a big criminal record has such philanthropic goals in life. He’s a very nice person, it seems. This actually even makes his heart hurt.

Hongjoong bursts out laughing and Seonghwa realises he lost control over his facial expressions. “Please, don’t cry. Yeah, I’m a criminal, but I’d like to think I’m a nice person. Like, besides smuggling and stealing.”

Seonghwa smiles awkwardly. “I guess.”

“Okay, nevermind,” Hongjoong pats his shoulder. “Are you sleepy already?”

He thinks a bit, listening to his body. and shakes his head. “I don’t think I will be soon.”

“Join us on the lower deck? Not really getting drunk, mostly talking,” he nods to the front side of the ship and smiles.

The talking part though goes horribly so far—Seonghwa just sits there holding his almost empty mug of hot wine with spices, feeling horribly awkward as he is obviously the least experienced here. He’s not the youngest—as far as he knows, Hongjoong is younger by a few moons and Chaeryeong looks like she’s barely into late teens—but it sure feels like because of this. He doesn’t even have anything to say so he’s just listening to red haired conman-merchant Mark talking about robbing at least three noble families in past moon with selling them fake pearls from Amaterasu.

Until at one moment the conversation stops and a gunner Sungjin is looking directly at him.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around,” he says. Seonghwa suddenly feels very small and very young. This is probably shown on his face, because quartermaster Irene laughs and shoves him on the shoulder.

“Stop scaring the poor kid,” she tells him and then smiles at Seonghwa. “He’s new here and you’re already trying to start shit.”

“Yeah, I’m new here,” he says and smiles very awkwardly, “by that I mean this is my first day.”

Irene nods thoughtfully and side-eyes Hongjoong for a second before continuing questioning. “So what brought you there?”

Seonghwa waves his hand, with the same pained grin. God, all these cool pirates look at him and expect a story. And he has nothing to say and no time to make up. “Nothing interesting, seriously.”

“Oh, come on. ‘Nothing interesting’ is Sungjin being a guard who became a mercenary and then was hired by a captain and then staying,” Mark says, rolling his eyes.

“Eh, I just ran away from the orphanage with my sister,” Chaeryeong shrugs and takes a sip from her cup. For some reason Seonghwa hopes it’s not the same wine they’re all drinking—she looks too young to get drunk. “Mark is from Amaterasu, they just… Just start pirating.”

“Nobody knows about Hongjoong,” Mark continues the chain.

“I was too low class to live a lawful life,” he mutters into his cup before taking a sip.

“Me and my sister were sold to the brothel,” Irene says and looks down into her drink. “We ran away, but she decided to stay at Beira. Her name is Yerim, you might meet her here.”

After all these stories Seonghwa feels even more peer pressure. He doesn’t even know why he decided to follow Hongjoong. He just had a bad day and thought this was a great idea. To be precise, he had a bad day for sixteen years in a row.

“Well, I…” He squeezes his knee with his free palm and thinks of better words. “I had nothing to lose anyway, so… Why not have some fun.”

“Well, you will have fun here for sure,” Irene smiles and raises her cup. “Cheers, lads.”

Everyone mutters it back and hits her cup with their own—Seonghwa to his own surprise is one of the first to do so.

They talk a little bit more and Seonghwa even feels less awkward, but half an hour after a bell rings from the upper deck—Sungjin gesturing everyone to get up, and explains to Seonghwa that it was a signal to put out the lanterns and sleep.

As they walk away, Chaeryeong suddenly catches up with him and grabs his arm to lean closer but talks in the same volume. “My favorite thing is that I never had trouble falling asleep. Waves lull you like a mother holding a baby.”

Seonghwa can’t fall asleep—too many things had happened, too many thoughts, mind racing—he just stares at the ceiling and tries his best to ignore Hongjoong’s breathing, but fails. It evens slowly and quiets down, so he’s asleep now; Seonghwa still can’t, despite the waves lulling him, just like Chaeryeong said.

Seonghwa is confused and scared, yet it somehow still excites him—yes, he’s not certain about anything anymore, but he’s going to have a new life. He has dreamed about being a brave adventurer. It was a child’s silly obsession and obviously it will be less fun than he expected, but still—anything is better than a seaside city where he did nothing but work. They are going on a legitimate journey for a treasure, Hongjoong promised they will meet many new people tomorrow, and they will sail the seas, battle the beasts and witches—

The Witch is pointing a slingshot at him, with an actual huge diamond in it; her patterned coat and long brown hair blowing in the wind, nose red from the cold. If she lets go of the string, Seonghwa is done over—the gem is massive and would break his skull for sure.

“Run,” he hears a voice of a woman—not the Witch, but someone else; Seonghwa reacts quickly and starts running. The Witch shoots but misses—he can see the diamonds hitting the ground near his legs, getting stuck in the wet soil—they’re in some kind of a swamp.

The strong wind is blowing in his face now, but he still sees through tears—there’s a cliff in front of him. It’s too late to change direction, and if he slows down to figure it out, then The Witch will shoot him.

“Keep running,” the same woman advises, also short of breath—she’s probably running with him.

Seonghwa for some crazy reason decides to listen and keeps running, and jumps from the edge of the cliff. The wind blows his coat—white fur and feathers, pure silver buttons—and it gets stuck to his hands, and he suddenly feels his bones shifting into bird ones—he’s a seagull now. He makes a few frantic flaps to balance himself and takes circles over the cliff—The Witch still tries to shoot him, but misses as the diamonds are too heavy to fly that high. He can’t see the woman who helped him from here though, and he has to escape—what if The Witch also can shapeshift? So he makes another strong flap and—

—and jolts awake.

Hongjoong snores on the side of the bed, arm hanging off the side—shifted in his sleep too much he turned on his stomach. Seonghwa can’t peacefully leave the room and fixes his blanket, covering him up to his shoulders. Wow, he’s already weirdly attached to this guy in the span of one day. As he should—he’s the future quartermaster, he should take care of the crew.

He meets Irene on the main deck—she, without any words, shoves him a long stick, most likely a mop a few minutes prior to their meeting, and nods to the side of the ship. Seonghwa gives her a questioning look.

“Show me what you can do,” she walks away from him to two meters distance, holding the same stick.

“Nothing,” Seonghwa laughs, but grabs the ‘spear’ with both hands and gets into the fighting position.

“I will be gentler than I’m usually with my students,” she laughs at him, but without any malice. “I just wanna give you advice, if you don’t mind. I doubt you do because you don’t seem eager to die.”

Seonghwa shakes his head and plans on replying with something, but Irene points at his legs with a spear before he has a chance to.

“First, your posture is very risky,” and after that she actually bounces in front and hits his knee lightly. Seonghwa has no time to react and it takes him by surprise, so he nearly falls. Irene smiles, clearly satisfied. “See? If I hit harder, you would’ve fallen. Set it wider and bend in your knees a bit.”

Seonghwa follows the instructions and looks at her, expecting. Irene starts walking around him, spinning her own ‘spear’ in her hands as if it weighted nothing.

“You actually rarely go against another spear wielder. Unless you’re horribly unlucky,” she says, as she makes a quarter circle around him, “People at the sea mostly like swords. Which is unfortunate because a spear wielder during the boarding might literally save the day. Why did you decide to wield a spear?”

Seonghwa thinks back a bit. “Lived in a shitty district. Robbers.”

Irene shakes her head. “No, why is it a spear, not a sword? Or a bow? It’s a very noble weapon. You don’t seem to come from a noble family.”

He can’t think of any specific reason, so he tries to guess. “Maybe… Don’t know, it’s just… It’s long so I would reach further than the one who attacked me so…”

“Exactly.” Irene spins the spear for one last time and puts it against the floor, and then looks at him. “The main tactic is to just keep making holes in someone while they’re desperately trying to reach you with their short blade. But have you ever actually fought a robber?”

“…No.”

“Did you have enough space at home?”

Seonghwa gets hit with sudden realization.

Irene, apparently, notices it and smiles, satisfied. “Yeah, the spears are hard to use in narrow spaces like hallways and houses. It’s ideal on the ship though, but it’s too massive to use during boarding.”

He misses a moment when Irene swiftly closes the distance between them, slightly poking his chest with one of the ends of the stick.

“You died,” she gives him a gentle smile and walks away. Seonghwa huffs, a bit offended, but it’s not like he didn’t expect that—Irene’s whole presence screams experienced. Now, her teaching him is a big honor, probably.

For the next two days, as they make it to Beira past billions of small isles across the sea, Irene practically abducts him for advices on spear wielding and on ship crew management, as she learned he is also going to be a quartermaster, so he barely gets away from her—he walks into the room later than Hongjoong, fixes his blanket that fell off as he moved around, and passes out until the bell rings at the sunrise. He falls asleep so fast that his mind doesn’t have the time to do the regular ‘ _I make you think that you left your room and do wild shit_ ’ trick it always does before he sleeps.

It’s not like Irene could’ve given him a full course on how things work, but as Seonghwa gets ready to take off the ship he thinks he is way more ready for his new life than he was before he got on this ship. He even feels excited to see if he can do it. They arrive at Beira before sunset—the mountains and the streets are painted bright red under the sunlight, and the sea glitters with pink. Seonghwa takes a moment to look around as he stands in the pier holding his bag. The streets of the city are full and lively—to his surprise as he never expected that from a pirate island. From here he can judge the city has to be no smaller than Ran Bay city, and he never thought that the kingdoms had this right under their nose. Or maybe, they pretend they don’t have this under their nose—it’s not like he ever believed in fair and noble kings and their just courts. Someone has to be rigged, at least statistically.

Hongjoong walks up to him and laughs. “Now wait, you have yet to see it.”

Seonghwa nods and follows him on the street.


	4. aventüre 4

“Chris got hanged. I think.”

“Who?”

San rolls his eyes. “The dude who was betrayed by his navigator. God, you asked me what’s new and I answered.”

“Really? Betrayed?” Seonghwa interrupts before Hongjoong changes the topic.

“I don’t know, that’s what people say. Maybe he’s just a loser who got caught. I just pass the rumors,” San shrugs.

Polaris had these little white foxes sneaking into the village late evening, trying to steal the chickens—it’s a half-forgotten memory to Seonghwa, but he still remembers it as he watches San’s expressions. Narrowed in a smile eyes, cheerful voice and a mischievous grin, on top of that a scar crosses over his face, as if someone tried to cut it but missed, only leaving slits on the eyebrow, cheekbone and lip, which probably had happened here—who knows what drunk pirates do here for fun. Maybe one day he will hear this fun story, since he would probably be staying here a lot.

“Well, also literally two days ago a woman barged in here and claimed she is Black Swan Mina,” San says with a smile and leans on the counter.

Hongjoong huffs and shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

“What?” Seonghwa turns to him and asks it at the same time as he says that.

“Don’t say you’ve never heard about Black Swan,” he says, side-eyeing him.

“Of course I have,” Seonghwa huffs, offended. “I mean, she died 200 years ago.”

“Literally the same person like that portrait,” San continues excitedly, “You can’t make this shit up. She walks up right here, says her name is Mina the Black Swan, she was cursed for immortality and she knows where Noth is.” He moves to the side to look behind Hongjoong and gestures to get the attention of a girl serving cups on the table near them. “Yeri, tell them I’m not lying.”

Yeri purses her lips and shakes her head. “I was here too.”

“Whatever,” Hongjoong shakes his head again and turn back to San. “Did anyone respond to my call?”

“I did! Pick me!” San raises his arm over his head and waves a dirty cloth that he uses for wiping the tables.

“And that’s it?” The fake disappointment in Hongjoong’s voice is too obvious. This whole scene makes Seonghwa smile a bit.

San fakes genuine offence. “Hope you remember I was sailing when you were shorter than your sword,” he bends over the countertop to him, “and that I’m good at throwing knives even piss drunk.”

“Of course I do,” Hongjoong pushes him away from his face and gestures to his side, “Ask the quartermaster, he’s the boss here.”

“Did he tell you?” San makes puppy eyes and actually pouts, like a little kid in the bakery asking for a cake, not like a pirate begging to be taken for a journey. “I was born on a ship. I’ve been raised by my grandparents, they’re a captain and his first mate. I totally would be useful on the ship. Pinky promise.”

Seonghwa can only shrug to this—it’s not like he actually is competent to decide if he fits their crew, but if Hongjoong decided to talk with him first, then San should be here.

“Sick,” San smiles really wide, so he can see past his fangs. “I have recommendations. They didn’t respond to the call but won’t be against it.”

“I’m listening,” Seonghwa nods.

“Two friends of mine. One is a good navigator, the other one is,” then a mischievous smile warps into a sinister smirk, “crazy as fuck.”

“Continue,” he nods again.

“By good navigator I mean dude can actually hear the sea. Like, he was born with a talent. The crazy one is an insanely amazing warrior, but, uh… kind of a bloodthirsty weirdo. But I promise to you, he’s a totally chill dude.”

Hongjoong snorts. “How the hell a bloodthirsty weirdo is a chill dude?”

San rolls his eyes. “I mean, like… Well, he is a chill dude but he gets completely unhinged in the battle. Like I fought on his side and it was… an experience.”

Seonghwa looks at Hongjoong just to meet his skeptical eyes directed at him. After a full conversation through concerned face expressions and raised eyebrows he finally turns to San and, sighing before saying, replies, “Alright, meeting him won’t hurt, I guess.”

 _That was really not the smartest thing to say,_ he comments to himself, _meeting a bloodthirsty weirdo might hurt._

San smiles, clearly satisfied. “Last time I heard of him was that he went to Argemonia. I’ll send a bird and ask to meet up, but I’m pretty sure he would agree. His call has been hanging on the wall for a moon already.”

“The guy who hears the sea… Are you talking about that Mingi guy?” Hongjoong asks. After getting the confirmation in the form of San nodding, he hums and scratches his cheek in thought. “I actually was meaning to find an excuse to meet him, I was interested.”

“Dude, why won’t you just tell me?” San actually screams this and throws the wiping cloth at the barrel under the counter. “I never told you I’m friends with him?”

“You never did, actually,” he frowns.

“Is he famous here?” Seonghwa actually gets curious—a person who can hear the sea sounds interesting, whether it is an actual skill or a form of speech here.

San tilts his head, thinking a bit before replying. “Not really. I mean, he’s very memorable. He actually can sense the ponds, like… I’ve seen him do this stuff with the river behind the city.”

Seonghwa blinks in confusion. “Wait, I thought it was a metaphor.”

“Nope, he actually is weird like that,” San’s expression forms into a huge proud grin. “I was picking up things from the bottom and he was guessing if it was a rock, a shell or a coin. Always guessed right. Even described the colors.”

“Yeah, I can’t believe so I wanna see it myself,” Hongjoong says. “Like it sounds like some kind of a trick, it can’t be real.”

“You’re so skeptical. He really is a sea magician.”

“M-hm. Also witches exist and some people see dreams,” Hongjoong snorts.

San rolls his eyes and turns to Seonghwa. “Anyways, Hongjoong always stays here and I figure we’re leaving soon so you can book a room for the night and wait an hour until I’m done with my shift and can organize a meeting.”

The room feels even smaller than that ship’s cabin, but it doesn’t seem to actually be narrow—maybe the walls are actually closer but you can walk between the beds. San tells them to come down in an hour and a half, so they just sit here in their room, waiting—Seonghwa feels the time pass by painfully slowly, watching the clock not move for what feels like ages.

It’s probably the first time he has time to actually think of everything that happened in the past four day and comprehend it as he was too exhausted to think and just fell asleep—nothing really sank in yet, even though he kind of accepted it. Disappearing from the city and abandoning everything for the promise of a change and some gold. Irene giving a crash course on accounting, most common pirate laws and spear wielding. The biggest problem so far, probably, is that he has to remember now how to write. And how to make his handwriting tangible. Feathers are so uncomfortable, not to mention he just in general feels like his hand gets numb when he has to make the letters flow after each other. Maybe he also has to learn how to read faster because short sentences take a solid minute to make sense. Wow, maybe this wasn’t as cool as he thought initially. And he yet has to see the journal pages and maps.

“Do you have any friends in other cities?”

Seonghwa actually jolts out of his thoughts and stares at Hongjoong in confusion.

He coughs and avoids his eyes. “I mean, maybe you know people who might join. The skills aren’t even necessary anymore, I’m desperate.”

“No, that cat was my only friend, actually,” Seonghwa sighs. Usually thinking about that made him so embarrassed but now he said it out loud and it’s okay. Maybe it’s the knowledge Hongjoong doesn’t have anyone besides San either. And again, to think of it, he didn’t have time to make friends. When you had to work since eleven, it’s understandable, probably. Even at work nobody really made any attempts either—was it his constant frown or xenophobia to northern refugees.

“That’s sad. Will you be my friend then?”

Seonghwa feels weirdly soft at this and smiles while reaching his hand. “Of course.”

Hongjoong grins and high-fives him.

Weirdly soft—the same way as he felt when he found out Hongjoong’s plan was to give away the allegedly magical relic to the hospital because that’s where the necklace capable of healing every wound would be the most useful, same way as he feels when he sees him constantly kicking off his blanket in his sleep, and now this corny phrase to declare the official start of their friendship. It’s obvious that they will be friends on the same ship, but Hongjoong still had to say it and now grin at him across this tiny room, undoubtedly satisfied with securing the position of That Gloomy Ymirian’s First Friend.

Seonghwa decides Hongjoong is a person of golden heart and pure soul despite the profession.

  


***

  


There is a legend—Skadi was a land of giants, so people from here are tall; not three meters like the legends say but still, taller than average. And Seonghwa met a few skadians in his life too, but a skadian warrior is totally a different sight—tall, confident, muscular, plus Seonghwa just in general feels very awkward these past days after joining an absolutely new community. 

Mingi doesn’t seem really threatening after he starts to talk—his appearance though really made Seonghwa tense up at first, even as he doesn’t seem to be that strong, he had a very skeptical and broody expression. His companion Yunho though gives off more threatening vibe with less unfriendly expression—even though he’s frowning, his face just looks very soft—he stands here quietly, and Seonghwa notices drawings across the inner side of his right hand inside the sleeve, when he scratches his nose and crosses his arms.

Seonghwa watches Mingi listening to Hongjoong and notices how his hair glimmers in light—and maybe he’s going a little bit crazy, but it changes colors from dark grey to bright green and purple on the ends.

“Okay, got it. I’m in,” Mingi nods and looks at Yunho—he shrugs and raises his eyebrows.

“Then me too, bro,” he looks at Hongjoong, uncrosses his arms and reaches out his right hand. Seonghwa sees something drawn on his wrist, a bird and something else above it, peeking out of the shirt’s sleeve. “My bow is yours.”

“We yet have to vote for the captain,” Hongjoong still shakes his hand and searches for Seonghwa with his eyes. “The quartermaster is the boss here for now.”

“Oh? It’s already confirmed? No vote?” Yunho gets surprised. Seonghwa starts to feel nervous—so usually the quartermaster is picked by voting, so he is pressured into doing his job no less than absolutely perfectly. No second chances.

“Yeah, he has all the skills, so he would’ve won anyway,” Hongjoong interrupts in a voice not allowing any arguments.

Yunho examines him across the table as he crosses his arms again, and Seonghwa talks to himself in his head that he shouldn’t be worried about this. He was promised it and he will prove he deserves it. He can do it.

This brief but noticeable awkward pause gets interrupted by San coughing and slamming a bunch of battered yellow papers covered in writing on a table. “Eden’s journal. You didn’t ask, but I figured out you would need it,” he says, turning to Hongjoong.

“Yeah!” He grabs it excitedly and shuffles over all of it but then starts frowning. “Does anyone else know how to read?”

“The quartermaster should know,” Yunho replies, “as well as the captain, though.” There’s no malice in his voice but it still sounds slightly demeaning. Seonghwa puts the first point of his list of skills to improve—urgently learn how to read comfortably.

“I know how to read,” Hongjoong hisses through teeth, “I’ve read these pages. I’m just… very slow and the handwriting is ugly.”

“Alright, get it here,” Mingi reaches out his hand over the table, “I can read fast.” He pauses a bit and squints, skimming through the first page. “What the fuck is this?”

“See, you can’t read this comfortably,” Hongjoong huffs. “Just read it.”

So Mingi reads it out loud—there’s not that much because the pages are damp and half the sentences were lost—and Seonghwa checks out the map meanwhile. The pirate of old times Eden talks about healing his wound with the necklace, just like Hongjoong already mentioned; then he proceeds to describe his crew fighting over some cursed pearls, so he decides to put all the jewelry and gold in the chest and bury it somewhere. The location mentioned to be an island in the Selkie sea, but the explanation is missed whether it’s where the chest is buried or if it’s the place where the next clue is.

The journal next has drops of blood covering one of the pages, and a huge chunk of sheet missing—the last page makes Mingi frown before he reads it out loud.

“ _…the Witch cursed us for disrupting her peace. I believe the bounties were chosen as a source of spell—as soon as we got rid of every pearl, every gem, every coin, the necklace and compass, the minds were cleared._ ” Mingi raises his eyes from the journal and looks at Hongjoong. “I changed my mind. This dude scared me.”

“What?” Yunho asks flatly.

“I mean, like… wouldn’t the curse pass on us then?”

Yunho snorts.

“Witches do not exist, c’mon,” Hongjoong reaches out his hand and takes a map from Seonghwa.

“You have some selective beliefs,” Seonghwa comments, “witches do not exist but a magical necklace that can heal any wound exists.”

“You don’t understand,” he rolls his eyes. “Look, there is no evidence of witches and true magic existing, but small magic is totally real.” He turns to Mingi and adds, “like healing necklaces and people who hear the sea.”

“Oh God,” Mingi sighs and rolls his eyes, “469 steps until the shore. 34 gold and 11 silver coins in the fountain down the street. I can’t sense the lake from here, sorry.”

Hongjoong blinks a few times. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“You were thinking that.”

“Guys, stop,” San lowers down to the table and lies his chest on it, making a very pained expression to show them this argument is hurting him personally. “We didn’t even start the journey and we’re already fighting.”

They both look at him for a moment, thinking, and then Hongjoong’s expression warps into one of genuine remorse. “Sorry. I didn’t think you wouldn’t like this.”

Mingi doesn’t look remorseful but still looks down and sighs. “It’s just annoying already. I mean, I’ll still have to prove it because San is telling people I can do that but… Let’s move on.”

“You know navigation, right? That’s enough for me,” Seonghwa tells him. “Whatever the reason, you just will be responsible for it.”

San suddenly gasps. “Yo, Mingi. We’re going to Argemonia tomorrow to meet up with my friend. Where’s your island?”

“Half a day from Khione, if the wind is following.”

“We will stop at Khione though,” San mutters and then turns to Seonghwa to explain, “Mingi discovered an island by himself. It’s not on the map, you can check it yourself.”

Seonghwa scratches his head and looks at Hongjoong, partially for permission but mostly for support. Hongjoong looks back with nothing but anticipation of the final decision, so Seonghwa turns back to Mingi in front of him. “I guess we can see it then. Would work as proof of your skill.”

Mingi nods and gives him a small smile.

“Do we have a ship already?” Yunho unrolls his sleeves and cuffs the buttons back. Seonghwa tries to figure out the drawing, but he moves too fast. Maybe he can ask him later, since they’re in the same team but he’s really curious right now.

“There’s a cargo ship sailing to Khione,” San says. “It leaves tomorrow midday. It’s Jihyo’s.”

“Great. Then tomorrow at the port,” Yunho gets up from his seat and waits for Mingi; San also hurriedly slides in between the table and Hongjoong to leave with them, so then both Seonghwa and Hongjoong free the table as well.

Hongjoong suddenly runs up to San and catches up with him on the entrance to ask for something, but Seonghwa can’t hear it on this distance, but he doesn’t leave and waits for him. It’s probably pretty late already—Yeri is yawning on the counter and keeps looking at the huge clock on the wall, there are significantly less people than when they just walked in here, and there’s less noise—so they really should go to sleep. Seonghwa feels very sleepy, actually.

Someone suddenly pats his shoulder and makes him jump up out of his thoughts—there’s a woman standing to his side, significantly shorter so she looks up to him with her big doe-like eyes. Seonghwa just opens his mouth to ask her if she needs anything, but then she grabs his elbow and starts talking.

“I saw you in my dream.”

Ah, dreams. That stuff that doesn’t exist. Seonghwa never was able to figure out what the hell it actually looks like—everyone described it differently. But it seemed like a very weird concept—no way you can see something when you sleep instead of just instantly waking up or seeing absolute darkness.

Seonghwa tries to free his hand, but she holds him strongly, so he decides to hear her out. Nobody looks his way, this must be something that happens all the time, so maybe he really should talk—who knows the rules of this place.

The woman continues. “My name is Yerin. I had a dream about you. Morrigan Witch tried to shoot you. You were running away in the wind, to the cliff, and turned into a seagull.”

Seonghwa actually breaks a cold sweat. “What?”

“The dream,” Yerin repeats. “You go to sleep and see pictures, as if you weren’t sleeping but went to another place.”

This is fucked up.

“Okay, and?” Seonghwa tries his best to not sound fucking terrified.

Yerin shrugs, and he notices she let him go. “I just thought you should know. Find me if you come across the ‘Stay’, we could discuss the dreams. There’s something coming up soon.”

She walks away to the exit, passing Hongjoong coming back to him with all the journal pages, and Seonghwa finds himself staring into the distance, ignoring him. Dreams were the pictures and moments you see when you go to sleep. It truly was his brain fucking with him, convincing he went different places before falling asleep, but it was, in fact, the infamous _dreaming_ , described in the legends, a skill only few possess. He was thinking he just went crazy, but was he dreaming this whole time?

He probably got it wrong. It’s just a legend and people lie about it. Dreams do not exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yunho del mundo sleeve sexy


	5. aventüre 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey um. 😂😂😂😂 hi everyone did you miss me

Seonghwa picks up a small cone seashell stuck between the rocks, closes the fist and, while keeping his hand underwater, turns to the pier and asks. “What am I holding?”

Mingi still stays turned with his back to him and hums in thought. “Hermit crab? Grey shell with black spots.”

“Got you!” Seonghwa laughs and straightens his back, then shows his open hand to Hongjoong. “It’s an empty shell that was stuck in the rocks. And it’s white.”

“Give it here,” Mingi now turns back to him and reaches out his hand while leaning on the other. Seonghwa puts the shell on his stretched out palm. “It’s light grey. And it has spots.”

“Your first thought was that it’s a hermit crab,” Hongjoong points out, but Mingi just gently pats the shell, and a pair of antennae shows up from the bottom, followed by a pair of claws and legs. “What the fuck.”

Mingi wordlessly completely lies down on the wood of the pier to carefully lower his hand into the water—he almost reaches the bottom so the crab for sure made it safely to home.

“Do you just… see it or it’s something else?” Seonghwa asks him as he and Hongjoong both walk to the steep shore and come up to Mingi, who meanwhile gets up from the pier.

“It depends,” he shrugs, “like, mostly I just know it, but sometimes I actually can see something. When it’s the distance, it’s like… Literally the same as when you say something like ‘oh yeah, it’s in 10 minutes walking distance’. I just feel like it.”

Jihyo’s loud captain trained voice rolls through the distance like thunder—all of them pick up the bags and nets with oysters and run back to the ship.

Seonghwa would swear he saw Khione and Beira being relatively on the latitudes close to each other, but the weather is so drastically different here—Beira has northern winds and cold waters licking the shore, here, few hours away from Khione itself, they were just splashing in the warm sea because the sun is so hot it feels like the wood of the floor would catch the fire. Mingi then says it’s because the seas have some kind of weird different streams—Beira is surrounded by water of Morrigan ocean, and Khione is in Noth ocean’s waters. He also said they could’ve seen the border between the differently colored waters, but they passed it at night and all slept through it.

“We will be at Khione this evening,” Jihyo tells Seonghwa while they both hold the rope ladder that the rest of the crew would use after they push the ship off the shore. “Then I think we can check out that secret island, I figure.”

She leaves for the wheel, Mingi joins her for their navigation discussions, Minho climbs back into the eagle’s nest—Seonghwa accepted in these three days of their trip he’s not up for making new friends, and that’s okay—Hongjoong volunteers to help Ryujin and Seungmin to cook—in Seonghwa’s opinion, this sounds like an explosive combination—and while walking around the ship in boredom, he stumbles upon Yunho, San and Jeongyeon in the cargo hold outside the kitchen, talking about something.

“So, basically, it's better not to drink at these festivals. In general, not only in southern Skadi,” Yunho slaps terrified San on the shoulder, and Jeongyeon snorts. Seonghwa walks up closer and sits on the big box next to San. Yunho continues with autoritical notes in his voice. “And I know about unpleasant experiences, I have these,” and then he shows off his arm covered in drawings.

“What does it mean, by the way?” Jeongyeon nods to his arms.

Yunho clearly looks satisfied at the question, as he hurriedly rolls up his sleeves to show the drawings better.

“How did you even get this?” San touches one of the drawings with a finger, as if he’s afraid to smudge, but then suddenly his face looks very surprised when it stays in the place.

“Yeah, it’s… Paint rubbed into wounds,” Yunho looks a bit sheepish saying this and smiles awkwardly to them both—San genuinely is terrified and Seonghwa figures his face is quite shocked too, though Jeongyeon doesn’t seem much fazed. Yunho then scratches his head with another hand and starts his explanation with the drawing of a compass under the inside of the elbow. “This one… I thought it would be cool to have a compass on myself so I won’t ever get lost in the sea.”

“Oh, so it’s for protection?” Seonghwa asks.

“The compass and a bird,” Yunho hums and then points to a stylised hourglass under the compass, looking as if the mountains of sand become a sun in the center of it. “This one doesn’t have any specific meaning, actually, I just thought it’s cool.”

“It’s pretty,” San nods. “What does the bird do?”

Yunho gently touches the bird below the hourglass, right above another writing on his wrist. “It’s a swallow. There’s a skadian legend that if a sailor has a swallow on themselves, then it would bring their soul to heaven if they die in the sea.”

Jeongyeon ohs and nods, impressed. “I never heard that. We all should get it.”

“No, thanks, I don’t think I can handle having paint rubbed into my fresh wounds,” San immediately disagrees. and Seonghwa nods and involuntarily winces—just thinking about it hurts.

“Yeah, it’s quite an experience, so… not recommended. But it’s kind of fun, unlike getting poisoned,” Yunho smiles.

“They say in Church that’s a devil’s mark,” Jeongyeon says, as if she’s thinking out loud. “I don’t think I would get any.”

Seonghwa resists the urge to roll his eyes and comment something snarky—the fanatics are truly a plague on earth. To think there’s a religious pirate is funny—there has to be at least fifteen verses about murder and robbery.

“I’m going to hell anyways,” Yunho snorts, unrolling his sleeves. “You too, for killing devoted soldiers of the crown.”

Jeongyeon shrugs. “I pray diligently and serve God. Maybe if you confessed to your sins and prayed… I’m going to Heaven, dude.”

“And then we die and it turns out there’s nothing,” San exclamates, inappropriately cheerfully—the sentence is too grim for his satisfied smile.

“Do you know southerners believe the world is a dream of the goddess?” Jeongyeon tells, voice serious again. “When the people die, they just wake up in another world.”

“Isn’t this heresy?” Yunho jokes. “Do you support another false religion?”

“I do not,” Jeongyeon frowns, “Sharing knowledge about the cultures isn’t a sin.” Then she straightens her back and continues, melancholic again. “Minho said he once dreamed of a Witch telling him something like… Wait, I remember the exact quote, give me a moment.”

Seonghwa throws all of his attention to her but tries really hard to hide his interest—since that interaction with Yerin he wasn’t able to stop thinking whether he was seeing dreams all this time or not. And as if his brain was mocking him, he hadn’t seen a single dream since that. Though he remembers he went weeks without seeing any, but he was talking to himself before sleeping— _please let me see a dream, I want to be sure_.

“Some of us never were at Tsukuyomi, some never had a chance to go to Nuada, and next life is simply another place we’ve never been before—and we’re going to explore it together.” She looks up at Seonghwa staring, expression still dark. “This kind of makes sense, don’t you think?”

Seonghwa swallows dry. “I guess.”

“That’s an interesting approach to this, I agree,” Yunho scratches the back of his head. “We all would need this now, we’re the last generation before the Ice takes over.”

Now it’s quiet—everyone probably also thinks about the fact they are really going to witness the end of the world.

“Where are you from?” Seonghwa registers too late that Jeongyeon is talking to him.

“Me? Northern Star,” he replies quietly and sheepishly, as if embarrassed.

“Don’t be shy!” She pats his shoulder and smiles, “I’m from North too. But I’m from Eos. We’re cool because we survived.”

He knows what she refers to, he experienced it—people feeling wary of the refugees for absolutely no reason, as if they’re going to bring the Ice with them right now. Nobody admitted it, but there was an obvious difference in the tone of the voice when the selkies realized he’s ymirian.

“I hope you can feel welcome in the pirate kingdom,” San says and smiles. “And in Hongjoong’s team. I know I joined later but he’s my best friend so I really want you all to get along with him.”

“I’m not a part of your team but I hope we never cross our swords too,“ Jeongyeon gets up and high-fives him. “You guys are fun to be around.”

***

Khione port has a small town around it, apparently it’s more lively when it’s a trading season—the ships stop here on the way from Aurora Borealis to Spring archipelago and back—but now it’s pretty quiet. The inn here is absolutely empty, so all ten of them walking into it at the same time are a lot. Jihyo picks half of them to accompany her to the market, and the rest of them—Seonghwa, San, Minho, Seungmin and Ryujin—stay in the tavern. Nobody dares to order a drink for some reason—maybe out of the team spirit or because Ryujin looks too young.

“Are you guys a part of a crew or you just accompany Jihyo?” Seonghwa breaks the silence first.

“I just started so I haven’t joined a crew yet,” Ryujin says. “These guys were.”

“Were? What happened?” He turns to Seungmin and Minho—the latter is at the very corner of the table, turned away to the window.

Seungmin scratches his arm. “That was a loud case. A captain betrayed by his navigator. Have you guys ever heard about Jimin?”

“Girl Jimin or boy Jimin? And girl Jimin from Ace of Angels’ crew or?..” San asks. “There’s so many Jimins.”

“Don’t play an idiot, Choi San. Shin Jimin and boy Jimin have lived hundreds of years ago,” Minho suddenly turns to them and basically spits the words out, “This bitch is still alive, when she deserved to be dragged under the keel.”

“Why are you like this?” Ryujin asks, offended for San.

Neither he nor Seungmin have a chance to explain—Jihyo’s voice interrupts them, then she peeks into the tavern as well.

While the rest walk out, Seungmin catches up with Seonghwa and whispers to him. “San knows everything. He’s just playing dumb. But you’re a new one. Please don’t be mad at Minho, he really has it hard. He’s a dreamer, berserker, and he’s really not taking well Chris’ execution.”

Seonghwa remembers their first encounter with San. “Oh. I’ve heard this one.”

Seungmin’s expression gets darker and he nods. “Yeah. We’re from Stay’s crew. Chris and Jimin were best friends, so they left for a black market alone. Then we heard the news he got caught and she had disappeared. Minho thinks she just called the guards on him. A lot of us think so because he convinced us. Jisung, Changbin, Tzuyu. It makes sense but I want to find out the truth. Felix is with me. Jihyo, Hyunjin and Jeongyeon think there’s no way she did it.”

“I see. I’m sorry this happened.” Seonghwa doesn’t really know what to say—this little sorry wouldn’t bring a person back from the dead.

“Thank you,” he nods politely. “But if you meet a short woman with red hair, please let any of us know. We’ll owe you and your crew one.”

“Sure.”

Now Ryujin calls for them, and they run quickly—Minho gives them both a suspicious look, to which Seungmin responds in an animalistic growl-like sound and clanks his teeth.

“Behold—Song Mingi’s Paradise,” Mingi announces, jumping down from the ladder to the sand shore.

The island in question is really pretty, even though simple and deserted—the view is amazing. A piece of soil that can fit an average sized town if you cut down all the sole trees. Most of the ground is covered in shrubs and grass, and there’s a plateau far away that can fit a little palace here—a great place for a mayor’s castle. This island really was made to be owned by an ambitious lord.

“So, a year ago me and Yunho were near Khione with El Dorado,” Mingi starts the explanation. “I felt this island and asked the captain to check it out. So we discovered it. Suho though said he doesn’t need this naked land so I can have all the rights for it.”

“It’s weird that he refused,” Jihyo rubs her chin in thought, “This place is nice.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Mingi nods, “I mean, better for me, no fight and all… Well, I like small things in life.”

Seonghwa huffs and crosses his arms.

“Now pray Hongjoong isn’t bullshitting y’all and the journey will be successful, so you can build a town here with the money you find,” Ryujin says with a big smile. Hongjoong rolls his eyes but laughs.


	6. aventüre 6

A bit later after moving to Ran Bay Seonghwa found out his mother had a choice to get a shelter at Argemonia instead of Ullr but she thought it’s a dead end—this archipelago is nothing but fishing and port stocks work. Little did she know Seonghwa still ended in the port with no perspectives, wasn’t it for Hongjoong—frankly, he’s happy she never finds out now.

San leads them through the city with the confidence too suspicious for a person who claims he never left the pirate kingdom—maybe the Windrose city was the place he would stay at more frequently. Seonghwa looks around and feels weirdly disappointed that it looks literally like Ran Bay, just with more channels between the city districts because the city is placed on multiple isles, and most of the pavement under your feet is larch planks because the dirt under it is always wet.

The tavern they meet at is packed and practically tearing at the seams, and the table is too small for seven of them, but they manage to fit here anyway. San’s friend’s name is Wooyoung, he introduces himself as ‘enemy of the several states’ and leads the conversation off the treasure hunt topic to stupid small talks, either to show off his experience or just to waste time. He’s accompanied by a young guy named Jongho who looks at least six times wealthier than any of them—even Hongjoong’s fur coat looks like a peasant’s carpet compared to Jongho’s silver earrings, jacket embroidered with gold and the boots with shiny metallic flowers attached to it. Seonghwa doesn’t expect him to join—he looks too rich to get low enough for crimes—but as soon as Hongjoong actually manages to start the conversation about the journey, Jongho’s eyes start sparkling in excitement.

“Please, can I join? I can fight!” He leans on the table and it tilts. “I also can patch you up. I’m not a great surgeon but I know a bit of first aid.” 

Wooyoung laughs rasply. “He’s really underpresenting. This kid is a literal winter bear in a battle. Take him too.”

Jongho smiles sheepishly and gets up off the table.

Wooyoung is absolutely up for joining the team, just like San promised—and during the conversation nothing comes up that could hint on why he called him a crazy bastard. Instead San tells the story of how they became close friends because Wooyoung saved his life, and the latter is smiling in embarrassment the whole time—during a boarding, San got injured and cornered by a soldier, and Wooyoung attacked him from behind; and it’s the same exact fight when San got his face scarred. Seonghwa tries to think rationally—Wooyoung is a good fighter and seems to have some tactical and strategic knowledge, so he would be a very valuable addition to the team—but he literally has no damn idea about what type of a person he is and should he trust him. Something about Wooyoung is very out of place, but he can’t figure whether it’s just because he’s stuck on San’s words or it’s his actual thoughts.

Hongjoong is waiting for him right behind the door, so Seonghwa nearly drops his bag, getting startled.

“I’m sorry,” Hongjoong whispers and grabs his arm. “But it’s urgent and I don’t want anyone else to hear it.”

Seonghwa sighs deeply but closes the door and leans closer. “What is it?”

“It’s about Wooyoung.” Hongjoong looks at him, waiting for a reaction, so Seonghwa nods and he then continues. “I don’t like the idea of him joining here.”

So, it’s not just him. “What is it?”

Hongjoong scratches his head and leaves his fingers on one of the braided strands, and starts fiddling it nervously. “Look, when San said he’s a blood-thirsty weirdo, I thought maybe it was a different person, but now I’m sure. They say some things about him…”

“Like what?”

“Like that he eats people.” Seonghwa snorts out of shock, so Hongjoong lets go of his braid and gives him a look. “Do you know who the berserkers are?”

“Not really,” he shakes his head. “You’re telling me he’s a berserker?”

“I’m pretty sure he used to say it openly but you can figure out of the descriptions,” Hongjoong averts his eyes and stares at the door, lowering his voice. “If he gets injured, he gets into some state of total frenzy and gains inhumane endurance and strength. The more you harm him, the more powerful he gets. If the effect won’t wear off, he might attack allies. To continue moving even with broken bones and half the blood lost, he would straight up eat the flesh of a warrior he defeated.”

Seonghwa takes a pause to let it sink in. To be quite honest, it makes him a bit worried but the skepticism about the magic stuff dulls this fear. But in the end Mingi actually turned out to have some kind of magic, right? Maybe rumors about Wooyoung are true.

“Has anyone seen him actually doing it? Like, eating a corpse, you know.” Hongjoong just looks at him for a second, obviously faking disapproval, so Seonghwa rolls his eyes. “So no.”

“Listen. Better safe than sorry,” he frowns, “on top of that, he has a reputation. What do you think people would think of us when they find out we gave him shelter?”

“Didn’t expect you to care about that.”

“I don’t, but I still need more than five people on my ship—”

Seonghwa suddenly feels disappointed and impatient about this whole journey, and that’s why it probably sounds too harsh. “Hongjoong, these two will be the last people who will join you.”

Hongjoong’s face doesn’t change at all, he still looks at him, expression unreadable. Seonghwa regrets it even more than if he got visibly upset or mad.

“I’m… going to drink with the rest,” he says, also trying not to show he regrets saying that—after all, he was right.

“Have fun. I’m going to sleep,” Hongjoong replies in an absolutely normal voice and walks inside the room. It gets too late to apologize right now, so Seonghwa decides to say it later when he cools down.

First floor meets him with calm music from the bard and relatively empty hall—though he finds a part of his future crew still crumpled on a small table with three bottles of ale and cups for each other. When San notices him getting off the stairs, he excitedly waves at him and signals to come over. Yunho isn’t here too—probably is sleeping like Hongjoong because it’s pretty late. Wasn’t it for that fight, Seonghwa would’ve probably been knocked out too.

“We’re playing a game,” San announces when he sits between him and Jongho. “You ask a person to the right a question and they either reply honestly or drink. We’ll get to know each other and get drunk, it’s fun.”

“Okay, I’m in.” 

“Then go,” San gestures to his direction and looks expectantly.

Seonghwa nods excitedly, but then realizes he can’t think of anything and panics. “…What’s your favorite color?”

“Purple,” San smiles really wide and turns from him to Mingi on his right, “Are you single?”

Wooyoung bursts into loud laughter first, but Mingi nonchalantly pours himself a cup of ale and bottoms it up.

“Man…” San comments, with genuine heartbreak in his voice.

“We just started and there’s drama,” Jongho snorts but his expression is rather amused than annoyed.

Mingi clears his throat and turns to Wooyoung, staring at him with an obviously semi-drunk frown. “Are you actually immortal?”

Wooyoung smirks and takes a sip from his cup.

San starts protesting and calls him out in a complaining voice. “That’s not fair! If everyone just gonna drink instead of replying, how are we gonna learn anything about each other?”

“This puts my brand’s reputation on the stake,” Wooyoung speaks fastly in what is most likely fake annoyance. “I profit off the image. I can’t reply to this.” He then takes another sip and turns to Jongho, asking him, “are you a magical creature?”

Jongho laughs but then notices everyone’s curious eyes on himself and gets embarrassed. “What kinda question is that… Do I look like?”

“Dude, you threw a grown man in front of me! You lift beds like chairs!” Wooyoung sounds genuinely offended at his concerns being invalidated. San and Mingi both just stare at Jongho, mouths wide open. “If there’s not a drop of beast blood in you, I’m gonna be so surprised. Not even a dragonborn?”

Jongho shakes his head. “Never noticed anything in myself to think of that. Sorry to disappoint. I just worked out a lot.”

Wooyoung pouts and drinks again.

Jongho turns around to Seonghwa and looks at him for a bit. “Is there any topic I should avoid?”

“That’s literally stripping the game off its fun,” San protests again. “Ask him whatever you want.”

“I don’t wanna bring up any unpleasant memories and ruin the game, man.”

Seonghwa instead feels really fond of this kid being so thoughtful. “It’s okay. Go ahead with whatever.”

“Okay,” he scratches his knees through his pants and thinks. “What would you spend your share of the treasure on?”

San and Wooyoung snort simultaneously.

Seonghwa has nothing to hide on this topic, so he decides to reply honestly. “I would buy myself a land in the south and experience warm sun before we all die in Ice.”

Wooyoung snorts and shakes his head. “If that place was as cool as you northerners think of it, I would’ve never left it. You will regret once some crazy fanatic forces you to pay him because he is convinced he’s Dami’s whisperer, and you will go to jail for refusing.”

“Wow. That’s rough,” Mingi comments, looking at him with clouded eyes. You have to be embarrassingly lightweight to get drunk over a cup of ale, Seonghwa thinks and takes a sip for the team spirit. “Are you from the south?”

“Yeah. But I haven’t been here for seven years, so don’t ask for more. I still remember the language just because there was this dude in my mercenary gang who was an _errah_ too and we spoke springspeech with each other a lot. Feel free to ask me how to curse.”

Seonghwa notices a weird sparkle in Mingi’s eyes and turns around to San for a question. “What’s your most treasured possession?”

San once again beams brightly, replying. “My name. My father gave it to me.”

“That’s cool,” Seonghwa says this and thinks to himself this was mega stupid. “Is he a pirate too?”

San takes a big sip of his ale and nods. “Was. Both of my parents were pirates. Don’t even know where they went. Me and Haneul grew up with grandparents, but she’s more of a ground person. You can meet her in the bakery.”

“You’re sharing all of this like that,” Wooyoung comments with concern in his voice—emotion that Seonghwa hasn't seen from him yet.

“Because you guys are my best friends,” there’s some kind of annoyance in his voice, “I like you and I trust you. This is for teamwork.” He doesn’t let the atmosphere get ruined with that deep answer and his little outburst of anger and turns to Mingi, breaking into a sweet charming heart-melting smile. “You like dudes?”

Mingi rolls his eyes, sighs out really loudly and pours out one of the bottles into his cup.

“Are you doing this on purpose?!” San screams way too loud for such a late hour.

“Yeah,” he says and bottoms down his drink. “Hey, Wooyoung. What was the nicest thing anyone ever told you, in springspeech?”

Wooyoung leans back on the chair and throws his head back, thinking. “It actually would be a brother of church telling me his name within ten minutes of our meeting. It’s against the rules of the southern church, so I’ll keep this a secret.” Then he straightens in his seat and pours himself a drink.

“That’s really nice,” Seonghwa says. “He probably liked you a lot to break a rule.”

Wooyoung just smiles into his cup. “He had done a lot of nice things for me.”

It takes three more rounds of harmless stupid questions that Seonghwa barely remembers later. San is afraid of dark; if Mingi would make out with someone in this room, it totally won’t be San; Mingi refuses to reply if he has a crush on anyone in this room; Mingi refuses to reply if he would go out with San if they were the last people in the world; Wooyoung lists humanoid magical creatures, making sure Jongho is not one of these; Wooyoung drinks instead of replying what was the most illegal thing he had done, which inspires Jongho to ask Seonghwa too—he says it’s running away from his work early to join Hongjoong’s journey, because he’s not sure what to say. On the fourth round Mingi struggles to pour himself a drink after San asks what’s the sexiest thing about him, so they decide to finish at what turns out to be 2AM.

Seonghwa volunteers to drag Mingi into his and Yunho’s room, and San dramatically wallows on his way upstairs, complaining that he’s going to cry himself to sleep, drunk and lonely in his room with no one to cuddle, which wakes up Yunho who takes care of his friend and, after hearing the story, threatens to deal with San in the morning. Wooyoung and Jongho leave together—apparently, they live together at Jongho’s house.

Seonghwa enters his and Hongjoong’s room and passes out as soon as his head reaches the pillow, falling in a dark, thankfully dreamless slumber.

When Seonghwa wakes up, Hongjoong is already not here. But he meets him downstairs in the main hall, and suddenly remembers of their conversation yesterday and feels very ashamed. It’s time.

“I’m sorry,” he says and reaches his hand out. “That was a really mean thing to say. I didn’t mean it.”

“Whatever,” Hongjoong slaps his palm instead of shaking it and takes a sip of his drink. “You were right. It’s been six moons and nobody bothered to even talk to me about my plan. So you guys are really my last chance.”

Seonghwa feels even worse about saying that but decides that would teach him and accepts it.

“You are a born quartermaster,” Hongjoong continues. “It hasn't been a long time but you put me back on the ground countless times already. I’m gonna enjoy sailing with you so much. Our crew will go far.”

Seonghwa coughs to mask embarrassment. “Well. I’m glad I turned out to be actually useful even though you asked me to join while knowing absolutely nothing about my personality or skills.”

Hongjoong smiles to himself, still looking into his cup and nods.


	7. aventüre 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm done with boring intro chapters now somebody's gonna get stabbed

It turns out nobody was at Windrose city before, so nobody wants to leave it too quickly—even though to Seonghwa it looks literally the same as the port district of Ran bay and he doesn’t see the appeal. Jongho very nicely offers them to stay in his mansion together with Wooyoung until they all decide to leave, so they won’t stay at the tavern for too long. His house is surprisingly huge, though the furniture doesn’t seem to be very expensive, it’s still something Seonghwa would’ve only dared to dream of. The books probably cost more than all the shelves in the apartment. He sheepishly explains it all was passed on to him from the past owner of the house, though he’s thankful for that—he had to pass the time somehow in between work days.

It's been four days since their meeting when in Jongho, Wooyoung and Mingi’s absence Hongjoong brings up his worries again. He is more straightforward about it than he was back then and throws a quick glance at Seonghwa—he just raises his eyebrows, he already told him and it’s fully his decision now.

San’s eyebrows angle and he whines. “Oh, come on. You believe this dumb rumor?”

“Dude, you make money off dumb rumors,” Hongjoong sighs and shakes his head.

“Besides, too many people say he is fucking crazy,” Yunho frowns, “I’m kinda worried something clicks in his head and he’ll attack us. The kid is nice though. So I’m with Hongjoong on this.”

San raises his hands but immediately lowers it. “You know what, Hongjoong? You’re not even the boss here. Didn’t you tell me you’re not the one who decides? Hey, boss.”

Seonghwa jolts and realizes now a three pair of eyes is staring at him in anticipation. “Oh, uh… I don’t know, I’m kind of conflicted. I understand the worries but I’m afraid this is our last chance to recruit anyone.”

San shoves Yunho away and stands straight in front of Seonghwa, making puppy eyes. “How about I’ll take responsibility for him? If he harms any of us, I’ll admit to leading us into this. Then you can do whatever you want to me.”

Seonghwa bites the inside of his cheek and looks at Hongjoong and Yunho behind San—both stare at him in expectation. “I think I need to talk to him myself and decide.”

“I like you so much,” San grabs his hand and shakes it excitedly, grinning. “I’m so glad you’re our quartermaster, if anyone tries to vote against you, I will beat them up.”

Hongjoong rolls his eyes behind his back.

Seonghwa doesn’t wait for a long and confronts Wooyoung the same day as soon as they come back. Wooyoung grins, probably guessing the topic of the conversation already.

“Let’s fucking go,” he says and leans on the counter with his back. “May I guess you’re here to tell me I’m not hired?”

“Not really,” Seonghwa says and tilts his head. “I just wanna hear your side of the story, because rumors can be quite misleading.”

“And what if I tell you I’m actually a cannibalistic warlock?”

“Well, this will make me more cautious of you when we’ll go on the journey.”

Wooyoung laughs. “You’re such a nice person.” Then he changes his posture a bit, leaning with his hands on the table behind. “Alright, boss. I haven’t completed the ritual.”

Seonghwa has no damn idea what ritual he means here but figures there had to be something to grant a simple warrior magical abilities, was it actual awakening of something or just a simple demonic possession. He’ll probably learn about it later from him. “How can you confirm it?”

Wooyoung laughs again. “You want me to kill a citizen on the street and eat it to prove I won’t regenerate?”

“Fair enough,” Seonghwa laughs nervously and sits on the chair. “Why did you train if you didn’t complete it?”

“I didn’t know it was supposed to be _that_. It was really gross and I was fifteen. So I refused.” It seems like he’s nervous—he straightens himself and crosses his arms on his chest.

“Would you do it now?”

He shakes his head. “I know better now. Berserkers are fucked in the head, so I refuse to associate with them. Especially after how they treated me. Do you remember that brother of the church who shared his name with me?”

Seonghwa nods.

Wooyoung puts his hand on his chest somewhere above the right side of his chest. “He said the arrow nearly hit the lung. This was the first shot after I said it sounds sketchy. It was the only chance to change my mind they gave me. When I was running away from the temple, I got half my bones broken, poisoned with an amount that can kill an elephant, and another arrow almost went all the way through my thigh. I have no fucking idea how I made it out of here, if I believed in gods I would’ve said they protected me or Sua refused to take care of me in Hell and kicked me out. I woke up in the infirmary. And I’m here now.”

“What a story,” is the only thing that Seonghwa manages to say. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“That’s not the worst thing that happened to me,” Wooyoung waves his hand in front of his face.

They stay in silence for a moment, and Seonghwa thinks about what he had heard now. He doesn’t know what exactly made him decide, but he gets up and walks to him with a stretched out hand. “Welcome to the crew.”

Wooyoung notices him with a surprised expression, but shakes his hand and smiles.

Maybe being for such a long time in a place where nobody would give a single fuck about who you are and what brought you here made Seonghwa care about people’s backstories and worldviews this much—he believes everyone has their own reasons to do anything. There are some things he can’t excuse, but in majority you never know what someone went through.

He still has to find out what was it that made Wooyoung who he is but it’s obvious he’s a better person than the rumors paint him—a teenager forced into a bloody cult nearly dies at fifteen and becomes a famous criminal at twenty. Doubtedly a lot of nice things had happened to him before. Maybe this realization made Seonghwa so sympathetic and he ended up accepting him anyway.

Hopefully they won’t regret it.

Hongjoong and San both catch him in the stairway and start talking at the same time, curious about how it went. Seonghwa grabs San’s hand and looks at Hongjoong.

“So, did you decide?” Hongjoong whispers.

Seonghwa nods. “He’s hired and I would die for him.”

San opens his mouth in happy shock but Seonghwa leaves them to get upstairs before any of them says anything.

***

Jongho brings it up first over a drink in the same tavern at some evening—five or six days after their first meeting. “So, when are we leaving?”

Seonghwa scratches his head. “I guess anytime since nobody is joining. No news from Beira?” He looks at San—he shakes his head in a negative answer.

“Okay, but I have a question,” Wooyoung raises his hand. Seonghwa signals with a nod so he can ask it. “Do we have a ship?”

Everyone looks at Hongjoong, but he suddenly finds something interesting at the ceiling to stare at.

“Dude,” Wooyoung sounds more amused than disappointed.

“I didn’t think about that yet. Honestly,” Hongjoong admits, still avoiding everyone’s eyes.

“Didn’t Jongho say he’s rich?” Mingi looks at him to the left. “Buy us a ship since you wanna join us.”

“I’m not that rich, dude,” he looks at him, scandalized. “I just bought a designer’s cloak. Do you know Sir Thomas Ford’s tailor work? Plus I literally never in my life owned an amount of money that would be enough for a good ship.”

Yunho coughs to get attention on himself. “I’ll steal us one.”

Seonghwa can practically hear how a lantern lights up in San’s head when he realizes this was the best plan all along. “Right!”

“Aren’t we pirates? Since when pirates bought ships?” Yunho asks in a snarky tone. “So we’ll go in the port right now and pick the prettiest baby to take us to the gold and glory.”

The port for civilians is full of massive ships—at least three brigantines, snows, bilanders, multiple barques and even an actual ymirian drakkar that probably had survived the Ice; their eye fall on a little schooner standing at the side of the pier, unnoticed at first.

“It’s so cute!” San whispers, not looking away from the ship. “I want her. And we name her Destiny. I want a ship that’s called Destiny.”

“Are you sure you can do this?” Hongjoong looks genuinely nervous, gnawing on his bottom lip as he’s looking around the empty midnight port.

“Swear on my honor,” Yunho hits himself on the chest to indicate that he’s serious. “In an hour there will be three piss drunk sailors, maybe five or six unconscious guards if I’m unlucky, and a future pirate king commanding to loose ends. Or I’m not Jeong Yunho. Now hide somewhere and wait when I call for you.”

He leaves in a very cheerful step, swinging around the massive bottle he has in his hands and nonchalantly takes the direction of the future Destiny. Seonghwa and San hide behind the boxes and barrels near the pier where the ship is moored—he doesn’t know about San, but he himself feels too nervous to leave too far. Wooyoung, Mingi and Jongho, though, seem to trust him fully, so they walk away to the tavern’s terrace. Hongjoong takes a long time to decide, jumping in one place confusedly, but then decides to join the second team.

Yunho meanwhile walks up to the ship’s side. “Ahoy, there!”

A woman with long hair hangs off the railing. “What the fuck do you need, drunkard?”

“C’mon, don’t be rude!” Yunho actually fakes intoxication and genuine offense in his voice. “It’s my fucking birthday and I have a bottle of colossian mead! Self-made work, this is an once in a lifetime offer!” 

A man’s voice can be heard, getting closer. “I’m fucking bored here, Yongsun. Nothing’s gonna happen if we share a drink with this dude. You know the tradition.”

Seonghwa doesn’t dare to peek out to confirm, worrying his light hair will be too noticeable in the dark, but it really sounds like Yunho is getting on the ship, faking tipsy clumsiness. San, unlike him, has dark hair, so he dares to look out after the steps get quieter, and then signals for them to get a bit closer and sit right under the ship’s side where they can hear the genius plan’s execution better.

The woman’s name is Yongsun, there’s two men with her, Youngjo and Keonhee—Seonghwa memorizes it for some reason, maybe out of some leftover guilt since they’re planning to steal their ship. Yunho then proceeds to introduce himself by his real name and San shares a terrified look with Seonghwa.

“Is he stupid?” He whispers so quietly Seonghwa has to read his lips to understand what he has said. Seonghwa shrugs and listens closely again.

“What is it again?” Asks the one who Seonghwa thinks earlier called himself Youngjo—he was the one who talked Yongsun into letting Yunho on the board.

“U-uh… Northern Skadi, bro,” Yunho replies, slurring the syllables together. Seonghwa barely manages to keep himself from bursting out laughing—he’s so good at this. “You know Colossus fields? The border of Ice. They still have apiaries here. The bees are crazy… I love the bees.”

“That’s cute,” Yongsun says dryly. “Well, serve then.”

“Sure, m’lady.”

It’s followed by a sound of horn clinking, at some point Yunho curses and it sounds like he nearly knocks over the cups, which makes San snicker quietly to himself.

“Alright. Happy birthday, Yunho,” and it’s followed by a sound of them clinking their cups together. Youngjo sounds the most friendly out of three guards—was it just like how he is in general or because Yunho offered him some expensive drink. Seonghwa wonders if it’s an actual mead made of honey from Colossus fields or Yunho is lying.

“To be honest, tastes like regular mead from Aurora,“ Keonhee comments—and here’s the answer to his question. Then, apparently, everyone starts defending the drink, so he quickly apologizes, “alright, alright, I’m not a connoisseur.”

“Are you from Skadi, Yunho?” Youngjo starts talking again. “Me too.”

“Oh, cool. What part?”

There’s a yawn before the reply but it’s unclear whose it is. “The capitol. What are you doing for life, Yunho?”

The amount of times Youngjo repeated Yunho’s name is worrying Seonghwa—he wonders if Yunho has a plan on how to avoid the crew’s wrath when they decide to seek revenge.

“Me? I am but a merchant. I sell kitchen utensils at the store my grandpa owns. What about you guys?”

Keonhee laughs. “We’re sailors.”

“Cargo ship,” Yongsun cuts him off with a cold voice and then breaks into a yawn. Seonghwa starts to figure out what will happen soon. Hopefully without Yunho passing out too—after all, he said he will give them a signal, he has to stay awake at the end of this little fraud.

“Yeah. Lost the bet and now forced to guard this bowl,” Keonhee continues through a yawn. “These fuckers are having fun on the ground and we’re forced to stay awake. I’m really sleepy now.”

“Same. At least we’re getting drunk now,” Youngjo adds. “You have some more here?”

“Sure,” Yunho replies cheerfully, and there’s a sound of glass hitting the horn—he’s emptying the bottle for him.

“Couldn’t they keep Yeosang on the watch?” Yongsun suddenly complains. “This little bastard sneaked out anyway. Did he leave already?”

“No idea,” Youngjo replies. There’s an audible snore, and he laughs. “Alright. Keonhee out.”

“Man, who’s gonna guard the ship then?” Yongsun asks with obvious disappointment in her voice. “Because I wanna take a good nap too.”

“Yeosang. And our new friend, okay? Meet up with a short demon in a black coat,” closer to the end Youngjo’s words become more and more slurred, and it’s silent after that.

Seonghwa meets eyes with San, who looks as confused and nervous as he feels, and they just wait like that. They haven’t heard Yunho talking in a pretty long time, and they have mentioned someone else coming back to a ship, so they’re going to have problems. Not like one against seven would be a big problem, especially since they have Wooyoung and Jongho, but Seonghwa is kind of not ready yet to draw his first ever blood—

“Anybody here?” Yunho hangs off the railing a meter away from him and looks around. He notices them and laughs. “I fucking knew I’ve heard someone.”

“You’re lying, we were quiet the whole time,” San rolls his eyes as he gets up and helps Seonghwa.

“Whatever,” Yunho jumps over the side of the ship on the pier and stretches his shoulders. “Get the guys back here, they all are sleeping like dead.”

San theatrically salutes and runs off back to the tavern.

“May I ask how you did it?” Seonghwa watches in amusement as Jongho easily picks up the woman—Yongsun—from the ground and carefully walks off to the pier to rest her next to her co-guards.

Yunho smirks and throws the bottle over the side of the ship. “Sleight of hand. Literally because I had some real strong soporific on my fingers and put it on the cups when I was pouring drinks for everyone. I told you I’m a master.”

“You gotta share some of your poisons with me someday,” Wooyoung snaps his fingers at his direction and jumps on the pier. Then he walks up to one of the guys, still passed out, and starts rummaging through his pockets.

“What are you doing?” Mingi walks up to him but doesn’t try to stop even though his voice is full of contempt—probably too scared to start a fight.

“Dude, we are stealing a fucking ship!” Wooyoung snaps at him, “not to mention the governments of at least six Skadi provinces, three Hvergelmir districts and few cities of Ymir’s southern shore want me in jail, and at least one man will kill me on sight! We already committed so many crimes, might as well rob their asses. You think we’re gonna get shit in Khione for free?”

Hongjoong emerges out of the captain’s cabin with a loud thud of the door hitting the wall, wearing a tricorn—huge leather hat with a massive fluffy white feather, probably swan. He immediately takes it off and passes it to Seonghwa, who doesn’t dare to put it on his head.

“So?” He looks at Seonghwa and then at San who’s the closest to the ropes holding the ship tied to the pier. “Loose ends?”

“Yessir,” San salutes him again and turns around. 

Wooyoung walks up to him, getting a sword out of the scabbard on his belt, and easily cuts off each mooring rope San pulls on. After that Jongho kicks the pier with all the might he has in himself, and Mingi unties the biggest sail hanging off the mast—the ship immediately catches the wind and leaves in the direction of Khione at the south from the Windrose city.

“Destiny’s first voyage starts,” Yunho announces, and loud cheers of the entire crew consisting of seven grown men probably disrupts the entire shore.


	8. aventüre 8

It’s an hour into the sea when everyone eventually gets off the high of success and slowly gravitates towards each other on the main deck—San drags out a table out of the captain's cabin, followed by Yunho bringing some paper, ink and a feather, Wooyoung finds a lamp with some oil in it and lights it up, then Jongho brings out one single chair. Seonghwa comes back from inspecting the ship’s insides—quarterdeck, captain’s cabin under it, a living deck and a cargo hold at the very bottom. He doesn’t have time to check supplies—San calls him to get back on the upper deck for what he calls a very important talk.

This turns out to be indeed an important talk.

“For the sake of the tradition I would like us all to vote for the quartermaster first and for captain second,” Yunho says, leaning on the table that they’re surrounding. “Anyone would like to nominate someone for quartermaster?”

Hongjoong puts that fancy captain hat on the table and raises his hand above his head. “I vote for Seonghwa!”

“Anyone else?” Yunho looks around—San, Wooyoung and Jongho agree with Hongjoong—so he raises his hand too and looks at Mingi. “What?”

Mingi shrugs. “I don’t really care but I don’t mind either,” he raises his hand eventually.

Seonghwa snorts and shakes his head—is this still because he sucks at reading? “I guess I won’t vote for anyone else if everyone accepts me for this position.”

“Then it’s decided,” Yunho straightens himself and looks around again. “Now, the captain.”

Seonghwa finds himself instinctively looking at Hongjoong, he realizes he did it only after he registers everyone else is doing the same, which startles Hongjoong who was fixing the feathers on the hat thoughtlessly.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Wooyoung smiles really wide. “Who wants Hongjoong to be our captain?”

Seonghwa thinks he will be the first one to throw his arm in the air high over his head, but literally all six of them do it at the same time—Hongjoong’s eyes go wide and he laughs awkwardly.

“Me?” He puts a hand on his chest and looks over them all, as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Wow. I was afraid others would be against it and I’ll take it so badly I’ll throw hands,” San says with a laugh.

“You brought us all together, so it would be only right if you will be our captain,” Mingi says. Then he coughs awkwardly and looks away, muttering to himself, “I kinda wanted though but… Yeah, you should be a captain.”

“Pirate King Hongjoong!” Yunho shakes his fist in the air and starts chanting ‘pirate king!’. Hongjoong lets out another shocked laugh in response and blushes in embarrassment; Wooyoung and San immediately join Yunho, shortly followed by Mingi and Jongho. Seonghwa thinks it’s stupid but something blocks out all the rationality he had and he chants it too, feeling absolutely no embarrassment about it. Damn the team spirit.

Nearly after 15th ‘pirate king’ Yunho’s voice gives up so he just screams for the last time and claps excitedly.

“So, anyways,” San says with the same wide smile. “I don’t want any other captain but you, Hongjoong.” The rest agree with a nod or hum.

“What the fuck,” Hongjoong laughs in shock again, ears all red, bringing his hand to his mouth. “I just had this stupid idea, I didn’t think… Thank you, guys. Can we proceed before I start crying?”

“Yeah,” Jongho pushes the chair from behind the table and gestures to Seonghwa to take a seat, which he does.

“What am I doing?” Seonghwa asks nervously—he feels like he’s supposed to know. Irene probably told him what he’s supposed to do now. On the other side he has nothing to be afraid now, if they still picked him as a quartermaster with no fights, then he can continue being embarrassing.

“Ship codex. Write down the rules for our ship,” San explains and hands him a stack of papers. Seonghwa raises his eyebrows in surprise and gets the ink bottle from the opposite side of the table. This is going to be very embarrassing—he sucks at writing while being on the ground, not a single word will turn out legible if he writes it now.

“Any suggestions?” He wets the feather in ink and looks around.

Mingi shrugs. “We couldn’t curse at El Dorado, every ship’s codex is different.”

Yunho snorts. “That was funny, actually. Let’s prohibit cursing for Seonghwa only.”

“Declined,” Seonghwa shakes his head and finishes writing what he feels like a pretty fancy ‘ _Destiny’s codex_ ’ and ‘ _1._ ’ on a row below. “I think basic stuff would go. Like, no stealing from each other or no fights on the ship. But I trust you guys to be civil people. Yunho, keep your poisons away from the kitchen.”

Yunho salutes with a serious expression as Seonghwa writes it down.

“Another thing,” Seonghwa gets comfortable already and comes up with a lot of ideas. “Once the sun sets down, all the lights on the upper deck go out. Also, no gambling. Cards or dice are fine, but if you bet on money or possessions—”

There’s a noise on the deck below, somewhere in the passenger’s cabins.

“Someone’s here,” he whispers while looking at the crew.

San reacts first. “Aye aye, quartermaster,” he unbuttons his jacket for better access to the knives in the inside’s pockets.

As he leaves, moving with no sound, Yunho suddenly claps and coughs to get attention from everyone. “Storytime. Three pirates were getting drunk together. One of them got so fucked he actually died while still sitting at the table.”

Seonghwa almost tells him to shut up but realizes—this is smart. This way the intruder will not know they noticed he’s here.

“Moral of the story: don’t get drunk on the ship. Jot that down,” Jongho points out at the paper in front of Seonghwa.

“If he won’t drink, he would go crazy. Same for y’all,” Hongjoong grabs his wrist and puts his hand back to his side. “Go on.”

“Yeah, he’s like died and shit,” Yunho continues, “He’s in front of the Hell’s Gates and tells the valkyries, like ‘I died like a loser, can I come back and at least finish chilling with the boys?’”

“Must be a good one, that shit they drank,” Wooyoung interrupts.

“Sowulo mead,” Yunho hits himself on the chest slightly, “A drop of that potion makes you feel like fucking an Asmodeus. So they send him back but he wakes up as a spider under the ceiling, and sees—his mates are here drinking, not aware he is dead and that damn mead is still in his cup. So, he’s like, ‘shiver me fucking timbers, how the hell do I level down, I’ll die if I just jump!’ And a valkyrie tells him, ‘tense up and push the web out of yourself’. So the pirate spider—”

“Stop fucking kicking me before I break your neck, you—”

Everyone turns around and sees San dragging someone upstairs from the lower deck, clearly fighting back—he finally wins over his opponent hissing various curses, turns them around and puts a knife to their neck. Now Seonghwa and the rest can see the perpetrator—a guy looking rather fragile, with dark hair falling over his eyes so he can’t properly see his face, in a fluffy black coat over a once-before-white shirt and worn out pants. All these layers of clothing make him look even more small and thin, especially as San clasps a hand across his chest and puts a knife to his face, making him lean away, stretching his long neck. He mumbles something while rolling his eyes, then shakes his head so the hair gets away from his face, and finally looks at the crew, stopping somewhere behind Seonghwa’s back.

Hongjoong sighs deeply and picks up that fancy captain hat with a huge obnoxious feather, puts it on his head and walks in front of the crew, as they all get a little bit closer, looking from behind his back. Seonghwa also makes a serious expression and looks at the guy—he is still not showing a single hint of realizing he’s in big trouble, but rather looking annoyed.

“Who are you and what are you doing on my ship?” Hongjoong asks sternly, in a very threatening voice.

“It’s _my_ ship and _I_ should be asking this,” the thief replies and jolts away, but San hugs him closer and whispers something in his ear—Seonghwa can only see a familiar sinister smile and lips barely moving, but he guesses he reminds him he’s not in the right position to demand something. The guy’s expression slowly changes to something resembling slight acceptance of the situation, yet still annoyed.

“Do I ask you again or you remember the question?” Hongjoong’s voice keeps going lower, and it makes Seonghwa wonder how that guy still has the willpower to act bitchy when all of this wrath is directed at him.

He hisses, shifts to the side a bit away from San’s knife still pressed to his neck, and replies through obvious unwillingness. “Yeosang. I’m a surgeon on this ship. I mean, was, I suppose.”

Seonghwa turns around to Yunho—he blinks confusedly at first but then gasps, also remembering what had happened. The guards were talking about a little demon in a black coat.

“Now I remember this mug,” San moves a bit away from this guy’s—Yeosang’s—ear and laughs. “Since when are you sailing? How’s Wheein?”

“Wheein is doing great,” his voice is cold but San still smiles at him, even though he can’t see, “And for your information, sir ‘I know everything about everyone in the pirate kingdom’ San, I was a pirate way before I settled down at her clinic.”

“Why are you here now?” Hongjoong asks.

Yeosang chokes on air in anger, coming back to a furious expression. “Why am _I_ here? You fucking stole a ship I sail on! Why are _you_ here?!”

“Well, your crewmates shared a drink with me and told me to guard it now. And I was kinda lonely so I brought my friends here to keep me company,” Yunho says in a very snarky tone and smirks—it’s followed by Wooyoung’s ugly cackle and Mingi’s quiet laughter.

Yeosang mutters something to himself as he bores a hole in Yunho’s face with his eyes. He keeps nervously looking at someone of the crew, but Seonghwa can’t quite pinpoint who exactly it is—he looks away too fast.

“Anyways, Yeosang,” Hongjoong puts his hands behind his back and slowly walks closer to him, signaling San to let go. San raises an eyebrow but follows the order, stepping to the side, knife still in his hand. Hongjoong continues, “are you aware of what a pirate faces for sneaking on a ship?”

“As if you don’t know, Ship Thief King,” he rolls his eyes and puts his hands on his hip—Seonghwa notices a cinquidea on his belt and shoots San a warning look. He follows his eyes and nods shortly. 

It’s really obvious Hongjoong barely holds back from smacking him. “This is my ship now, Yeosang. And I have all the rights to make you walk the plank or left marooned. You wanna be the first citizen of Song Mingi’s Paradise?”

Mingi snorts and leans on Jongho, laughing. “He’s insane.”

Seonghwa actually feels a bit pitiful for Yeosang—they’re the ones who are in the wrong, so maybe they should just leave him in Khione, not threaten and throw into the sea. He probably remembers their faces now, so he will find a way to get back to Windrose city, find his crew again and track them down. Maybe even complain to the Pirate Kings or whatever is the highest power in the pirate kingdom. 

“Would we get punished for stealing a ship?” He whispers to the crew.

Yunho shakes his head. “The laws are on our side. What the pirate finds is his, including other crew’s belongings. If you let another pirate steal from you, it’s on you.”

Seonghwa laughs and turns back.

“Tell me what would you prefer? Drowning or dying in the heat?” Hongjoong asks in a very nice tone, like he’s just suggesting him to pick out of two dishes. 

“Neither, actually,” Yeosang rolls his eyes again. “I would like to come back to Windrose, where you leave our ship and go build one, like normal fucking people.”

“That’s not an option,” Hongjoong takes a step back, “but we happen to be in a need of a surgeon, actually,” and he turns around to the team, ignoring Yeosang’s absolutely furious expression.

Wooyoung bursts out laughing, and Yeosang shoots him a look full of such raw anger that San instinctively reacts by twisting the knife in his fingers into a throwing position. Wooyoung still smiles when Yeosang spits out some kind of a curse—a string of intervening words, a phrase in the same breath, full of so much poison that it transcends language. Seonghwa never heard springspeech properly but guesses quickly it was it—it’s always described as having the flow of a river, ranging from the waterfall to the creek; this one for sure was a killer wave.

Wooyoung replies something quickly and laughs bitterly in response, then turns to Mingi who was looking at him, explaining quietly. “This was a curse in springspeech, memorise. He said my mother sucks cocks in Hell.”

Yunho whistles and shakes his head.

“She actually does, don’t worry, I told him that,” Wooyoung pats his arm, not looking at Yunho who is having a shocked expression.

“I think we need a surgeon,” Jongho talks over them and raises his hand to get attention to himself. “Like I said, I’m not great at it.”

“Well, you heard it,” Hongjoong turns back to Yeosang. “Will you be my friend?”

Yeosang stares at him, looks down on the hand reached out to him, then gives another angry look to Wooyoung—who is still having some kind of a weird satisfied smirk on his face—looks over the whole team and finally side-eyes San.

“Siyeon take you,” he spits out and shakes his hand. “As if I have another choice.”


End file.
